ORCS or Half-Orcs?

[HeavenShallBurn]

And why? Because they have a stereotype of being goody-two-shoes. Take away their white-hat-until-proven-otherwise status and you wouldn't have that attitude towards them. Excellent demonstration of the unintuitive paradox I'm referring to. You've basically made my argument for me.

Has very little to do with being cast as 'white hats', I find drow just as distasteful. I just don't like elves whether good or evil.

A D&D where adult, male orcs cannot be attacked by a "hero" just for being an orc, and all that stands for, is by definition a poorer D&D, striking at the very heart of the game (a significant part of which is "killing things and taking their stuff"). YMMV.

I think you misunderstand, I'm saying it opens it up so that everyone is a potential candidate for the "kill on sight" not just orcs. The forest elf tribe that antagonizes the point of light or the band of human barbarians are just as much candidates for kill them and don't think twice as the traditional enemies. While allowing the possibility for more variation in the use of any individual humanoid race as part of the setting and campaign.

 

[Tquirky]

I think you misunderstand, I'm saying it opens it up so that everyone is a potential candidate for the "kill on sight" not just orcs.

I disagree. It means you need the next wandering encounter to fill out a questionnairre with questions like:

Are you a (a) sentient being who eats people, (b) a sentient being who doesn't eat people but murders them anyway, (c) not sentient at all, or (d) other?

When was the last time you killed innocents, and if so did you do it on purpose?

Have you ever had thoughts and actions that could best be described as "wicked"?

If you're demonic, do you consider yourself more (a) redeemable, or (b) irredeemable? (tick whichever applies most)

If you have family back at the lair or town, have you considered life insurance?

To take your statement at face value, everyone from street urchins to washerwomen can be attacked on sight under your regimen. If an orc warrior isn't automatically a black hat by default, then he'd better be good at filling out surveys. Or ensure every party has a paladin (bets that that ability is gone?)

Core PC orcs, drow and tieflings slide the game down this slippery slope further, arguably. I guess there's always the good old "they attacked first!" defence.

 

[Nahat Anoj]

I've said it before and I'll say it again, I hope full blown orcs make it in, and I hope that they were "created" by demon lords or some kind of demonic god as a slave race. Some orcs remain in the service of their demonic masters while others have freed themselves, but they are all vicious, aggressive, and warlike. Shades of the Night People from Blue Rose, actually.

 

[Khuxan]

I disagree. It means you need the next wandering encounter to fill out a questionnairre with questions like:

Are you a (a) sentient being who eats people, (b) a sentient being who doesn't eat people but murders them anyway, (c) not sentient at all, or (d) other?

When was the last time you killed innocents, and if so did you do it on purpose?

Have you ever had thoughts and actions that could best be described as "wicked"?

If you're demonic, do you consider yourself more (a) redeemable, or (b) irredeemable? (tick whichever applies most)

If you have family back at the lair or town, have you considered life insurance?

To take your statement at face value, everyone from street urchins to washerwomen can be attacked on sight under your regimen. If an orc warrior isn't automatically a black hat by default, then he'd better be good at filling out surveys. Or ensure every party has a paladin (bets that that ability is gone?)

Core PC orcs, drow and tieflings slide the game down this slippery slope further, arguably. I guess there's always the good old "they attacked first!" defence.

Moral people throughout history have killed without detect evil or surveys. You make the decision to attack based on evidence and priorities. Maybe the barbaric tribe has a perfectly good reason for attacking merchant caravans - but that doesn't make it wrong for guardsmen to kill the barbarians.

 

[Tquirky]

Moral people throughout history have killed without detect evil or surveys. You make the decision to attack based on evidence and priorities. Maybe the barbaric tribe has a perfectly good reason for attacking merchant caravans - but that doesn't make it wrong for guardsmen to kill the barbarians.

Gah. I don't care about your darn morally ambiguous barbarians, I just want orcs slayable without going into correspondence! Barbarians aren't nearly as good villains as orcs for "take their stuff" purposes, because there's a huge possibility that they might actually be the good guys etc. Keep it simple!

If I wanted a complex plot where the guys who seemed to be villains weren't, then the barbarians would be a shoe-in. Sometimes you just want to smack some monsters around and take their stuff, though. And that means no morally ambiguous orcs by default, unless the DM is pulling some rabbit out of a hat for a special occasion.

 

[HeavenShallBurn]

Gah. I don't care about your darn morally ambiguous barbarians, I just want orcs slayable without going into correspondence! Barbarians aren't nearly as good villains as orcs for "take their stuff" purposes, because there's a huge possibility that they might actually be the good guys etc. Keep it simple!

There's nothing morally ambiguous here at all, a hostile is a hostile, that simple. This allows you to make pretty much any group a collective 'hostile' with the same killability as your orcs. To use your example of the wandering monster encounter what questions? what worry? An enemy is an enemy, unless the GM is using the 'betraying-sneak' tactic telling the creature(s) are hostile and a threat isn't that difficult.

 

[Nahat Anoj]

It's not D&D if the PCs can't raid orc lairs and kill orc children with a clear conscience.

 

[Khuxan]

Barbarians aren't nearly as good villains as orcs for "take their stuff" purposes, because there's a huge possibility that they might actually be the good guys.

This is a very new concept. It's not long since primitive people had their land and liberty taken by civilised people, and during the Dark Ages/Middle Ages knights and warriors had no qualms about killing whoever stood in their way. It's only when 'Good' comes to mean "modern Western pacifism" that killing human barbarians is wrong.

 

[Mighty Veil]

Moral people throughout history have killed without detect evil or surveys. You make the decision to attack based on evidence and priorities.

There is a difference between real world and fantasy world.

 

[Mighty Veil]

It's not D&D if the PCs can't raid orc lairs and kill orc children with a clear conscience.

No it still is. Just it's a kinder more PC D&D. Maybe they should replace BAB with BDB (basic diplomacy bonus). Does this mean orcs should be renamed? Orc is a name given to them by men (humans). Maybe they should be called by what they call themselves and what they call themselves in their language: Oro-coo-ai-gax'choo'bliff'thrad-Pffftt.